About Manohar Lal Khattar

Manohar Lal Khattar belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He is currently the chief minister of Haryana. He was, in fact, one of the main architects of the BJP's convincing win in the 2014 Haryana Assembly elections. Though BJP president Amit Shah had projected Abhimanyu Singh Sindhu as the probable choice for Chief Minister’s position before the election, former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak Manohar Lal Khattar was elected to the coveted post.

Political analysts believe that Manohar Lal Khattar became one of the leading contenders for Haryana's plum post as the BJP preferred choosing a CM from non-Jat community. Dissection of election result points to the fact that non-Jat communities voted overwhelmingly for BJP in Haryana. This is where Captain Abhimanyu and Om Prakash Dhankar, both Jats, lost their respective momentum in the race for CM’s chair. Sources reveal that RSS had put its weight behind Khattar, who has strong roots in RSS and is also believed by many as the hardliner within BJP.

Early Life of Manohar Lal Khattar

Manohar Lal Khattar was born on January 1, 1954 in Nidana village, Maham tehsil in Rohtak district of Haryana. His father, Harbans Lal Khattar, was a shopkeeper by profession who migrated to India during the Partition of India. From Nidan, his family shifted to another neighbouring village Banyani in Rohtak district and took to farming.

Manohar Lal Khattar completed high school from Rohtak’s Pandit Neki Ram Sharma Government College. Subsequently, he started running a shop in Sadar Bazar, Delhi. Simultaneously, Khattar also pursued graduation and received his bachelors degree from Delhi University. He decided to remain unmarried to devote all his time on working for the RSS.

Political Career of Manohar Lal Khattar

Manohar Lal Khattar started his political career in 1977 by joining the RSS at the age of 24 years. He became a full time pracharak in 1980. He steadfastly worked as RSS pracharak for 14 long years and moved to the BJP, the political wing of RSS, in 1994. In Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) too, he started as a grassroots leader and mainly concentrated on organisation-building. In the year 2000, he became Haryana BJP’s Organisational General Secretary, the post which he held till 2014. He is currently the National Executive Committee member of BJP. During the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Manohar Lal Khattar successfully managed his responsibilities as chairman of Haryana BJP’s Election Campaign Committee. He contested the assembly elections for the first time in Haryana in 2014 and won it too from Karnal constituency to become the next chief minister of the state.

Controversies surrounding Manohar Lal Khattar

Some local BJP leaders belonging to Karnal consider Manohar Lal Khattar as an outsider. They point out that he is the choice of central BJP leadership and was imposed upon the local BJP unit. This became an election issue in Karnal constituency. Some of the BJP workers also started signature campaign once he was selected as candidate from Karnal. However, he ultimately managed to win.

His conventional ideas such as exhorting girls to avoid 'provocative' clothing to not attract male attention were criticised by many sections of society.